The Will to Survive

July 2009

By Anli Serfontein

As recently as 20 years ago, it was a strong community, united in a
heartbreaking history of forced removal; today it comprises small,
depleted congregations.

Two traumatic events mark the church's history. Engraved in the
memories of many and still held alive by the survivors’ oral history, is
the 1941 forced deportation of half-a-million ethnic Germans from the
then Volga Republic, most of who were Lutherans. They were originally
German settlers invited to the area during the 18th century Russian
empire reign by Katharina the Great. Former Soviet Union leader Joseph
Stalin banished them to the Russian steppe in the middle of a Siberian
winter - at below zero degrees, without any food or housing.

And then 50 years later, after rebuilding their lives and
communities, independence in 1991 led to the mass emigration of many
ethnic Germans to Germany, leaving another deep mark.

Communities were eradicated, emptying the once overflowing churches
within a few years. Eighteen years after the onset of the emigration
wave to Germany, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of
Kazakhstan (ELCRK) today has only about 50 congregations compared to 228
in 1993.

"It was a very bad time when a lot of people immigrated to Germany. I
say thanks to God that our congregation survived," recalls Rubin
Sternberg, chairperson of the Lutheran synod in Kazakhstan.

Long Distances

The painful history of the Kazakh church left a profound impression
on Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, general-secretary of the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF), during several visits to ELCRK congregations in 2003
and 2006. In early July this year, Noko spent three days in Astana and
Pavlodar listening to and meeting with dedicated pastors from the
scattered congregations. "You may be a small church but I bring you
greetings from 68 million Lutherans worldwide," said Noko to his
audience, including one pastor who had travelled 1,000 kilometers on the
single journey from his parish in eastern Kazakhstan, for the meeting
with the LWF leader in Astana.

Speaking to the pastors Noko said, "I think that Lutherans outside
Kazakhstan need to hear from you. How you remained true to the Word.
Many would not have coped, and yet you survived. You have demonstrated
to the world that the Church belonging to Jesus Christ can carry on."

The road from Astana to Pavlodar over the Kazakh steppe is long,
straight and bumpy. Bishop Yuri Novgorodov's driver often changes to the
opposite side of the road to avoid deep potholes. "Kazakh Autobahn
[highway]," the bishop smilingly tells his visitors. The monotonous
grass landscape, where sheep graze in the distance with their shepherds
on horseback, is interrupted by roadside graves - a stark reminder of
the road's danger.

It had taken 19 hours to cover the 900 kilometer return journey from
Astana to Pavlodar, routine for the bishop and pastors in this huge
country. Novgorodov has been bishop of the ELCRK since 2005.

Ms Klara Valejeva, 75, is a congregation member of the small church
in Pavlodar, in the northeast. She was a child when the Volga Germans
were exiled without any advance warning. She recalls, they had no time
to pack their belongings, and her father died when they fled. She had to
work from the age of seven, together with her four siblings. When asked
why she did not go to school, she answers shyly, "We didn't have the
right clothes."

From the age of 12 she worked as a housekeeper, marrying at 19.
Widowed today, she lives in Pavlodar with her daughter and visits the
local church regularly - it is her social life and link with the past.
She says she never had any desire to go to Germany, this is her home.

Emigration

Ms Alla Shirokhowa, 40, is fluent in German. She grew up in
Novousenka, a German village in northern Kazakhstan, where everything
was in abundance. After Sunday service in Astana, Shirokhowa reminisces
about the beauty of the town and the comfortable lifestyle they had. "We
were rich," she says. Today almost all of the Germans from that village
live in Germany.

A qualified German and English teacher, she moved from Novousenka to
Astana, where she taught German at the Lutheran Seminary before the
institution's closure. Today her husband only manages to get small jobs,
while she does translation work. With three children, including one at
college, she worries constantly about money. Rents are extremely high in
the new high-rise buildings springing up all over the new capital,
Astana, and work is getting scarcer, if one does not speak Kazakh.

Shirokhowa's face brightens up when she talks about the time when
worshippers overflowed into the courtyard for the Sunday service in the
Astana congregation. Only a handful of people attend worship today.

In church, the older ethnic German women still dress in black skirts
and white shirts, covering their heads in small triangular scarves.
After the service they started to sing hymns in German. On this warm
summer Sunday morning, their beautiful voices carry an air of
melancholy, of yearning for days long past; pining for friends and
family, now far away.

Because of the huge emigration wave, services today are held in
Russian. By changing the language of worship, the church has evolved
from a traditional German church, preserving German traditions and
language to a multi-ethnic church. "From a mono-ethnic church, we
developed into a multi-ethnic church. That is our only chance for the
future. In this way we have a lot of chances especially in the cities,
but our resources in manpower and finances are limited," said
Novgorodov.

Under Stalin, Lutherans were not allowed to practice their faith
openly, thus some Lutheran church buildings in Kazakhstan resemble
houses. The country's population of around 16 million people comprises
less than two per cent Protestants, while Muslims count for more than
half the population. In the post-Soviet Union period, an increasing
number of people are turning to religion in this multi-ethnic country.

Shirokhowa's request to immigrate to Germany, where her mother and
three siblings live, was turned down. In 2008, her daughter was denied a
visa to visit relatives in Germany. She speaks of the family's
difficult experience between the hope of emigrating and the darker
moments of despair, before they were finally turned down.

“It was six terrible years when we waited - a life out of a
suitcase," she says, lamenting that her children do not know their
family.

She says she is more and more worried about her future as a
confessing Christian in Kazakhstan. "In recent times, one sometimes is
really afraid, because it is a Muslim country. And, increasingly so."

Commitment

Some 450 kilometers away from the capital, Shirokhowa's half-brother
Stanislaw Mikula, a Lutheran lay preacher, like almost all the pastors
left in this vast country, leads the second parish in Pavlodar. He
started this congregation nine years ago, with a regular Sunday
attendance of around 25 people.

During the week he works as a tractor driver, setting aside Sundays
for preaching in his small church. He has permission to immigrate to
Germany, but intends to stay with his young family because he is deeply
committed to his parish and sees it as his mission in life.

After this three-day visit with the ELCRK, the LWF general secretary
promises Novgorodov and his pastors that he will continue to speak up
for the Kazakh church. "The reason I'm doing it is because I can't
imagine how the Lutherans survived through this time. The faith you had
and have in difficult circumstances, with little finances and resources,
including the distances you have to travel. The Lutheran church in
Kazakhstan is part of my soul," Noko pledged.